It had sent a shiver up Teddy’s spine and caused him to reach into his pocket. His numb fingers could hardly close around the packet, but he got a handful of seeds and dropped them just before he was hoisted onto a stretcher. He hadn’t even got a chance to give them to Wren. Didn’t know if he ever would again.
His paranoia was only justified when they’d loaded him into a separate vehicle to the others. They traveled a short distance before dragging him back out again into a wooded area. He’d left a trail of seeds as they’d hauled him along before Kellan had opened up a set of doors hidden by a small mound.
It had looked like an old bomb shelter.
As he was dragged through, he assumed it probably was, or at least that it had some military significance that had been phased out long ago with the development of more magic-based systems.
He’d been taken through a maze of corridors into a room and shoved into a chair, manacled down as the conduit he’d ripped from the larger machine was taken and plugged into the machine above his head.
“Stop playing pretend, Damir. I know you’re awake,” Kellan said. Teddy clenched his jaw and raised his head to meet Kellan’s impassive gaze. He smiled without feeling. “Welcome home.”
“This isn’t my home.”
“But we’re like family, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t home wherever your family is?” Kellan asked, eyes glimmering.
“You’re not my family either!”
Kellan tutted. “He really has been a terrible influence on you, hasn’t he?”
“You shouldn’t have hurt him. You knew that if you touched him all fucking bets were off. I’m done playing your games,” Teddy growled.
“Are you?” Kellan asked. “I think you have time for just one more.”
He walked over to the freakshow menagerie he had created on the wall, the poor creatures growing wilder as he approached like they knew what might be coming. Spiders jumped at the glass and snakes hissed and rattled their tails.
Kellan paid them no attention, reaching for something on a side table before pausing with his hand hovering over black leather. He pulled it back, taking a moment and spinning his ring once around his finger, then he turned to the cages and opened one.
“Sir!” the man at the door said. “The gloves.”
Kellan ignored the caution, reaching in and grabbing something. He turned with barely disguised glee on his face. When he opened his hand, a scorpion was revealed, with zigzag markings in neon green, its tail oversized and heavy.
The scorpion remained calm in his grasp.
“How, sir?” the man asked in awe. “They’ve never done that before.”
“They’re easy creatures if you know how to handle them,” Kellan said, the scorpion poised as he walked casually to the lackey. The man cringed, turning his face away as Kellan held it close to him. “They simply sense fear.”
The scorpion struck in an instant as if on command, its tail piercing the man’s cheek and making him scream. He dropped to the floor a second later and the convulsions took over. He writhed, a labyrinth of veins lighting up under the skin across his face from the puncture mark.
Raw, acidic magic filled the air and the man scratched the floor bloody, chest arching unnaturally as the machine above Teddy’s head began to whir as if reacting.
Kellan stepped back and observed the reaction as one would an everyday event, until the man jerked and stopped moving altogether, eyes wide open in death, foam dripping from his mouth as his head lolled to the side.
Dead.
Teddy felt sick to his stomach.
The other lackey was trying to keep his composure, probably hoping Kellan’s ire wouldn’t fall on him next. Teddy understood the feeling all too well, the wish to be invisible, the desire to kill the thing inside him that Kellan seemed to want to hunt so he would leave him alone.
Teddy pulled at his bonds when Kellan stepped toward the man. This nameless person had helped Kellan abduct him, was apart of this nefarious operation, yet Teddy could not sit back and watch Kellan prey on another.
“Aren’t you here for me?” he called.
Kellan looked at Teddy and smiled. “You’re not going anywhere. Why rush?”
“Why needlessly kill those who are loyal to you?”
“Kill?” Kellan asked, genuinely confused. “You think I’m murdering them?”
